Gutsy tourist fends off incompetent mugger in Argentina

Take a rundown part of Buenos Aires, add a group of somewhat
naïve tourists breezily riding their rented city bikes while
wearing a GoPro and carrying expensive photo equipment, and you
get one of the biggest YouTube hits of 2014.

Canadians Alex Hennessy and Mike Graziano were in the process of
completing their aim of visiting 195 countries, and had already
been mugged in Ecuador, just weeks earlier, when a robber
brandishing a gun started demanding their backpack.

Whether travel-hardened or foolhardy, Hennessy played dumb,
pretending not to understand the mugger’s increasingly desperate
demands, almost daring him to use his pistol. After what seemed
like an eternity, Hennessy’s carefree associates noticed the
absence of their friend, scaring the mugger off just in time.

“I’m pretty callous. No longer fazed by guns. I need them to
show me bullets,” joked Graziano, who is currently recruiting
several female companions to join him in his quest to become the
youngest North American to visit all the world’s countries.

Meanwhile, the failed mugger was identified as Gaston Aguirre,
who was apprehended and released before casually giving
interviews about his role in the drama to a media keen to hear
his side of the story.

Twenty-one-year-old Ukrainian Vitaliy Raskalov and 25-year-old
Russian Vadim Makhorov have the lifestyle you wish you could have
– if you didn’t get a little jittery when you climbed a ladder to
change the kitchen lights. Arriving in a city anywhere in the
world unannounced, the pair of self-styled urban explorers plan a
heist to climb the best-secured building in the city which will
allow them to capture the most spectacular photos and a requisite
terrifying first-person video of them climbing – unsecured – up
structures which were previously only reached by cranes and
engineers. The two live off selling videos and photos of their
stunts, and by working with commercial brands.

Last year, the pair – whose origins from either side of the
Ukrainian border have given them symbolic cachet – annoyed
Egyptian authorities when they ascended to the top of the
pyramids in Giza. This year, the two took advantage of the
Chinese New Year, using it to get to the top of the uncompleted
632-meter Shanghai Tower.

The location of their next terrifying ascent is a closely-guarded secret.

Flying gatecrasher

Perhaps the most cinematic skyscraper video of the year was John
Van Horne’s jump off the 420-meter Kuala Lumpur Tower.

One of the 3,200 jumps off the building during the annual BASE
jumping, his video begins as he pushes off the edge of the
building and into the night sky, lit up with thousands of lights.
So far, so YouTube.

But, gradually we see that the parachute is aiming for a blue dot
in the distance, on a landing of another tall building. As it
gets closer, we realize it’s a swimming pool, and suddenly Van
Horne is landing in the middle of a pool party, to wild whooping.

As the camera captures him getting high-fives from admiring men,
and kisses and drinks from smitten women, we feel what it’s like
to be James Bond, at least for several seconds.

The jump itself wasn’t a cinch either.

“Your best-case scenario if you miss the pool is a
200-foot-high tree,”explained Van Horne to the Washington Post.
“Around the hotel, there was nowhere to land, no open
areas.”

Shark escape video lures millions, fails to convince experts

"Fake!" is probably one of the most common YouTube shouts below
any video featuring unusual events. And perhaps getting
legitimate journalists, computer graphics experts, and shark
scientists to write entire columns debating a 1:38 viral video,
posted by someone claiming to be named Terry Tufferson, is the
whole point.

Was the brave Aussie who “fought off,” or rather swam
away from a “shark” in any real danger, or was he just someone
trying to earn money though clicks, or pave his way to a
Hollywood job in special effects? This is still not public
knowledge.

As for the authenticity, a later video of a man running into a
tornado uploaded by Tufferson removed most doubt of
the genuineness of the shark evasion. For those who’d felt duped
after the original, there was karmic retribution – the second
video received only a fraction of the shark video's 28 million
views.

Running bulls chase crowd through narrow Spanish streets

Hundreds of courageous runners in red scarves and white outfits
dash through the streets of the Spanish town of Pamplona pursued
by enormous bulls on an annual basis. The Running of the Bulls –
or 'encierro' in Spanish – is part of the yearly San Fermin
Festival. The traditional chase through the town's winding
streets attracts a large number of people, with the highly risky
run being filmed on thousands of cameras.

The majority of the videos are typically shaky and blurry, with
the bulls chasing the runners – or “mozos” – while they hold
digital cameras and sprint at high speeds, sometimes falling to
the ground. However, GoPro footage filmed in Pamplona in July
gives a more comprehensive look into the adrenalin-filled chase.

"Not everyone can run the encierro," the organizers of
the festival warn, adding that participation requires "cool
nerves, quick reflexes and a good level of physical
fitness." The tradition, which dates back to the 13th
century, has seen 14 fatal cases – among people, not bulls – over
the past century. No one is killed in the GoPro video, but many
fall within dangerous proximity to the speeding hooves. A number
of people are seen being gored by the bulls. Several
participants, both locals and foreigners, were injured during
this year's frenzied dash; an American who co-wrote a book titled
'How to Survive the Running of the Bulls' was among them.

ISS astronauts place camera inside water bubble in name of
science

Vongfong wasn’t the best GoPro video taken at the ISS, because it
didn’t involve giddy astronauts trying to stuff a camera into a
floating water bubble.

NASA explained that the crew was “exploring the phenomenon of
water surface tension in microgravity on the International Space
Station,” rather than just delighting in being the only
humans able to play with flying water droplets.

The whole phenomenon was captured by a 3D camera from the outside, if anyone
wants to feel extra envious of Expedition 40.

Orgy of destruction

The AfE tower, an unloved landmark in Frankfurt, was renowned for
student sit-ins (due to the limited amount of doors, students
could simply take control of the block) and for being a hulking
example of 1970s Brutalist architecture.

A total of 10,000 people gathered outside to watch Europe’s
tallest ever demolition with explosives. The demolitionists - led
by, believe it or not, celebrity explosives expert Eduard Reisch
- put up a 6.6 meter fence around the perimeter to avoid damage
to nearby buildings, and placed dozens of canisters inside to
avoid creating a dust cloud.

"It is almost 100 percent possible to blow up such a building
without hurting people or neighboring buildings," Reisch
claimed before the explosion.

The building went down in just a few seconds, in a perfectly
controlled blast. An office block will now be built in its place.

Woman, drag queen, Lamborghini, all harassed on the street

The most talked about video on the list featured actress Shoshana
B. Roberts walking around New York for 10 hours, while a male
companion filmed her from a GoPro in his backpack.

Roberts and Rob Bliss, the owners of the marketing agency behind
the stunt, said the woman received 108 catcalls, which were
edited into a video that has gathered over 38 million views on
YouTube.

The debates were endless: Is the video proof that NYC and the US
as a whole are unsafe for women? Was Roberts dressed
“plainly," as Bliss claimed, or in provocative tight
clothing? And should that make a difference? Do greetings from
strangers on the street constitute harassment? If there were
catcallers of all ethnicities, as Bliss claimed, why were the men
in the video almost all Latino or black?

Not only that, but it helped launch a new trend for using street
videos to illustrate deep social issues with two-minute
clips. However, unlike the Bliss video, some of the most
prominent examples - such as policeprofilingArab men on the street - have turned
out to be completely fake. The most egregious was a video of an
attractive woman acting drunk, who was purportedly lured by men
on the street trying to take advantage of her (the original has
been taken down, but a copy has beenre-uploaded). A few days later – after the men
received thousands of abusive comments online – it turned out the
video was staged, and they were manipulated by the director to
say certain lines “for a student film.”

Whether technology gives us the chance to witness injustices that
might have gone unpunished, or reduces complex problems to
agenda-driven public ads, this is definitely one of the rising
trends to watch out for in 2015.